Unhealthy relationship with food

I have an unhealthy relationship with food. I love food. I love eating. I love experiencing new flavor combinations and all that great stuff. But I have an awful lack of self control. I eat when I'm sad, stressed, angry, bored... you name it. The answer is food. So I fucking hate food. I'm fat, and of course it's food's fault I'm fat, not mine. :( I've had this problem for years and years and years. I used to kind of circumvent it by being bulimic, but now I just... get fatter. Now I'm on a diet. It's not a horribly restrictive diet, just kind of eating less and eating healthier. I won't lie, the healthier food is definitely delicious, but it just kills me that I'm basically forced to make certain choices because I've gotten so damn fat. I have gained nearly 60 pounds in the last two years. Granted I have a thyroid problem and 2 years ago I was throwing up everything I ate, but it's hard not to get disgusted with myself over something like that. I'm trying to be smart about this whole healthy eating thing... having small snacks during the day to keep my metabolism up, doing some exercise, eating fruits, veggies, lean meat, Greek yogurt, etc. It's just so hard not to pig out when I'm as stressed as I am now. It's a battle between how stressed I am by being fat versus how stressed I am by the rest of my life. I miss my comfort eating. I'm going through some hard times right now, and I really, really want to just console myself with a pint of ice cream. My stupid husband hasn't signed the divorce papers yet, apparently I'm unwittingly in a feud with Clayton's mom, we're trying to get things in place to move at some point in the next couple months, etc. It just makes me want to cry all the time and consequently stuff my face. How do you give up a source of comfort like that? I want to quit smoking too, but I'm pretty sure I'd be about ready to kill people if I were to do that at this juncture. Well, I may not have a choice about quitting smoking... we're going to be super broke next week, and it's going to come down to a choice between eating and smoking. That thought right there just makes me want to cry. I haven't eaten lunch yet. I know I shouldn't skip it, but I'm so angry at food right now I just don't want to eat. As if me not eating will teach food a lesson for making me fat. I'm such an idiot.

Wedding fever

Even though I'm currently going through a divorce, I've recently been caught up in trying to decide what Clayton and I will do for our wedding. It's actually probably in reaction to the fact that I'm getting divorced... like I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, it's probably in reaction to the whole royal wedding thing too. I dunno. In any case, it's a subject that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later if we're going to be getting married in a little over a year. The biggest challenge we'll have to address is that my parents won't be paying for my second wedding, so we're probably going to have to fund the whole thing ourselves, which rules out a lot of options as far as where we'd have a ceremony and all that. There's a minute chance that Clayton's family might pay for things, but we certainly won't be counting on it. So... yeah. At most we might be able to put away a couple hundred bucks a month, but I would much rather go on a honeymoon than have a wedding. It seems like the most likely scenario is that we'll end up going to the courthouse or something anticlimactic like that. Yay, so exciting. I'm not going to say I won't be happy just to go to the courthouse, because in the end we'll still be married, but it would be nice if we could actually have a ceremony of some sort. But then we have to take into account Clayton's huge family and the fact that they wouldn't be satisfied unless every one of them in a 500 mile radius was there. That's terribly frustrating. I don't want 100 people at my wedding, I really don't, but Clayton said that's not a terribly unrealistic estimate (assuming 10-20 guests from my side). GAH! Maybe it's just because I've been through planning a wedding before and he hasn't, but I don't think he even comes close to grasping just how stressful planning a wedding is, no matter how simple you try to keep it. Not to mention we'd be getting married in Missouri, and planning a wedding in another state would be way more stressful than planning something local. The courthouse is sounding like a better and better option by the second.

Not a fan of my bad health

My health has completely been in the toilet recently, even more so than usual. I had mono, which I'm just about over, I had a huge freaking ovarian cyst that I had to have surgery to remove, and on top of that I had freaking pneumonia. But then there's the pain. So much pain. And the vomiting on a daily basis. Those have yet to be explained. I have to get an upper endoscopy and another colonoscopy next week to make sure there's nothing serious going on. Had a couple lumps in one of my breasts, which thankfully weren't cancer but still must be monitored. I'm also having an ultrasound next week of my gallbladder and other stuff in the region since my liver enzymes are (still?) high. So in a nutshell my physical health is a complete and utter mess, and my psychological health isn't much better. To make matters more infuriating, the health care in this stupid fucking town is so crappy that I have to travel an hour out of town just to see a gastroenterologist, but seeing as I have a history of having an enlarged liver, I don't even know that he's the kind of specialist I need to be seeing. What makes me nervous though is that Clayton's mom has cancer, and she and I have some of the same digestive symptoms. I think that would make anyone nervous. I'm done bitching. Just needed to get it out. Got to focus on my crochet. Working on a special project.

It's easy to point the finger

I am livid. So. Fucking. Livid. This time it's not my future ex-husband or a boss or anyone like that. It's my dad. He said one of the most ignorant and hurtful things he could possibly say, which was that it was my fault for "allowing" my husband to cheat on me. So he basically blamed me for the most painful event in my life. Okay, here's the scenario: You're a newlywed with horrible self-esteem and basically no income, completely financially supported by your new husband. You find out less than three months into your marriage that he's cheating. What do you do? Okay, so here was my thought process. First, I wanted a divorce. I confronted him about it. He said he would stop. I had a horrible gut feeling this was a total and utter lie, but I pretty much had no place to go, especially with negligible income at that point. Plus, having low self esteem, I thought "What man in his right mind would want me?" So I tried to believe he would stop, but it ate away at me. I never stopped my vigilant search for proof he was cheating. I never let my guard down. And eventually it got the better of me. My mental health was in the toilet, he wasn't even lying about cheating anymore, and I finally came into some money and had some income, so I decided I'd had more than enough and I left. My parents said I should have moved back home with them, but aside from the fact that I couldn't have brought my cat (who was essential to my happiness) with me, the fucking shame of admitting I'd married the wrong man so shortly after the wedding kept me from even confiding in anyone about it aside from my therapist. I didn't fucking "allow" him to cheat on me. I gave him a second chance I shouldn't have given him, but I didn't have a whole lot of fucking options at the time. Another reason I'm so mad at my dad is he keeps treating me like I'm so irresponsible. I am almost completely out of their pocket aside from my phone bill, which they pay because I'm an extra line on their plan. I have a steady job and so does Clayton, our bills get paid on time, I don't ask them for money, and we're starting to even put money away for things. I'd say that's a hell of a lot more responsible than I've been in the past. But it would be irresponsible to have a real wedding with a nice dress and all. My first marriage was the most painful experience of my life. On what is supposed to be the happiest day of my life, I don't want to be constantly reminded that I fucked up by going to a courthouse in a potato sack (I guess that's what he expects me to wear) and going to a shady motel across town for one night for a honeymoon. God forbid I should want to feel pretty and special for one fucking day! I don't want a $10,000 wedding. I don't want a $2,000 wedding. I don't care if we just go to a park with some rented chairs and a few flowers and get married by a justice of the peace then go back to Clayton's family's house and do a pot luck thing. I really don't. But I want to feel like I don't have to settle for absolutely nothing just because I've been married once already. I don't see why I can't have anything nice because bad things happened to me. I don't expect my parents to shell out a fucking dime for my wedding to Clayton. That's fine. They don't even have to fucking show up. I'll get over it. But don't call me fucking irresponsible when my bills are getting paid, our debts are being paid off, and maybe, just maybe, I want to save up money we can easily spare on something special. If they're not bailing me out I really don't see what the fucking problem is.

I'll be home for Christmas...

*sigh* That implies that my parents' house is my "home", which it is most definitely NOT. They moved out of my childhood home last year, and I absolutely feel like an outsider now more than ever before. I haven't lived with them (for more than three days, as in summer '09) for over five years, but going back to their old house, it always felt familiar. Now nearly every trace of my existence as a part of their lives is gone. They have a few pictures of me around the house, but when it comes to "my" room (the guest room) and all my surroundings, nothing is the way it was when I was growing up. All my trophies and medals and damn near everything from my childhood is in the attic somewhere collecting dust. My sister, of course, still lives with them, so I suppose she doesn't have the same emotional crisis about the whole thing. But... I dunno. In some way them moving out of the old house was one of the final straws that made moving halfway across the country not seem like a half bad idea. I miss them, there's no doubt of that, but something just doesn't feel right about being here. Nebraska has become my home. I have my own life with Clayton and the cats, and it's nearly mutually exclusive from my family's life. I always felt like an outsider though. A lot of it has to do with my illness. I am most certainly not the only person in the family who has *ahem* emotional problems, but I'm the only one who acknowledges it. It makes things very tense to have to walk on eggshells around people to avoid hurting their feelings. Honestly, with all the medication I'm on and therapy I've had the past six years or so, aside from hearing voices I'm pretty well adjusted. I think the problem is since I moved away in 2005 I have lost my sense of what my role in the family is. When I finished high school and my first year of college, before my hospitalizations, they were so proud of me and had such high expectations for my future. Now... I don't know that they're not still proud of me in some way, but it's a completely different dynamic. I didn't finish college, I don't have a great career or a "career" at all really, my marriage was a disaster, I just... they won't come out and say I'm a failure or anything, but I know in the back of their minds there's that nagging thought about how all my intelligence and talent was just wasted. I feel like a complete waste of space around them. They don't get why I couldn't finish my degree. They don't get why I can't suck it up and work a real job. They keep saying, well, maybe down the road, when you're stable, blah blah blah blah blah. I'm the most stable I've been in the last seven years, but with my illness comes serious limitations. The way my brain functions has changed... I don't have the drive and the focus I once did. I'm horribly forgetful. I get stressed out really easily, and my ability to function is inversely proportional to my stress level. I don't have the luxury of being able to not work so I can go back to school, and I can't handle both. School... I just don't have the mind for it anymore. When you sit through an hour-long lecture and not one word sticks in your head, and then you read the textbook and that doesn't stick either no matter how much you outline and highlight and all that, what's the fucking point of going to school? It becomes a waste of time, money, and sanity. So basically the fact that I haven't at all lived up to their expectations and the lack of understanding they have for the limitations posed by my illness have seriously been bothering me. Gah. And in everything I do with them, it's as an outsider. The family is mom, dad, and my sister, and I'm just... company. I'm not an integral part of the family. I'm an accessory... nice to have around, but certainly not necessary. The worst part of this whole mess is that Clayton is still in Nebraska for the holidays, so I'm here alone. Skype helps, but I don't have the one person who understands me around, and it makes it so hard to not lose it. Merry Christmas.

Christmas time rolling around

Wow. I haven't blogged in nearly two months. Bad me! Ah well, I can't say I've really had anything better to do, I just forget sometimes. So, what have I been up to? Well, until recently, sleeping ALL THE TIME. I'd literally sleep about 16-18 hours a day. It was mostly due to a couple of my medications that have since been discontinued, allowing me to theoretically be more productive. I suppose I've been more productive. I managed to crochet scarves and hats for my mom and sister for Christmas, and I've been a lot better about keeping up with chores lately. Gah... speaking of chores, I finally had to talk to Clayton about being such a slob. I love him to death, but it makes me resent him when I'm constantly either cleaning up after him or living in a pig sty. I take on a good share of the chores because I don't work as much as he does, but having to clean up the mess he makes when the trash can is mere feet away really gets my goat and I really don't think I should have to be his maid. He has been a little better since I said something, so I guess communication is good for something.Oh! We got a Christmas tree! I was so excited to get it. Last year Clayton and I were super broke and didn't have one. I'd had Christmases where I didn't have a tree, but my parents always had one I got to help decorate, so it was kind of okay. But then they didn't have one last year either, so it was really kind of depressing for me because that's one of my favorite things about Christmas. The initial investment of getting ornaments, a tree stand, lights, beads, etc. was kind of pricey, but now we have everything we'll need for years to come aside from a tree and maybe a couple special ornaments a year. We spent pretty much the whole day yesterday decorating and doing Christmas related stuff, which really made me realize how much of a drag my husband was around Christmas. Clayton and I had so much fun putting up the tree, singing Christmas carols, decorating the living room, making clove-studded oranges and so on. It really makes me wonder why I was with someone who didn't share my enthusiasm about such things. One of the biggest lessons I've learned since being with Clayton is that I shouldn't have to change myself for somebody. I was a different person around my husband. I wasn't allowed to be emotional or weird or slightly crude, and God forbid I should show even a hint of my insanity. I was constantly having to hide the real me because I felt like it would push him away. That was part of the nice thing about meeting Clayton in the hospital with no original intentions of entering a relationship with him. He got to see ME. The real me, uncensored, uninhibited, exactly as I am. And when it did lead to a relationship, it was great because I knew he loved me the way I am, not an image of myself I tried to project to get his approval. It's liberating.

There's something very erotic about cello music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdnD8660_W0

I am a really, really big fan of cello music, and I think I know why. Cello music reminds me of sex. It really does. It's bold or gentle, sweet or passionate, but always beautiful. Just the motion of playing the cello is very erotic, how a person's body moves with the music. I dunno, all I'm saying is that Clayton needs to learn to play the cello should we ever have the means of acquiring one. I think the real reason I bring that up is that literally everything recently reminds me of sex. I don't know if I'm going into some sort of hypomania or something, but hypersexual would definitely be an accurate description of me lately. Nearly every second of the day I'm thinking about it or dreaming about it or fantasizing or actively trying to get it. Not that he's unwilling to oblige me. If I want it I get it, and I love that about our relationship. We still cuddle and talk and all the things I need to keep me emotionally satisfied, but there's a good balance of the emotional and physical sides of our relationship, and thankfully those two things are not mutually exclusive.